For each design decision made, the candidate had a “note” at the end of the justification that provided an “alternative” or “Plan B” design decision (including the justification) if the driving requirement or constraint was removed. To those of you that have read my previous VCDX Deep-Dive blog posts, this could sound like the “Requirements Conflict” field in a design decision, which is only used when a conflict exists. The “alternative” design decision field would be completed for each and every design decision.

Why was this helpful to me as a reviewer? It meant that the candidate was able to demonstrate additional expertise and depth of knowledge through the submission documentation. Which means that the candidate would have additional time during the defence to spend time scoring in other areas of the blueprint.

If you want to demonstrate your expertise to maximum effect through your submission documentation and have the highest possible pre-score walking into the defence, consider using “Enhanced Design Decisions” throughout your Architecture Design documentation.

Here is an example for VCDX-NV (Enhanced Design Decision highlighted in green):

Availability because you have more than one NSX controller, Performance because each NSX controller represents parallel processing and Recoverability because the NSX controllers can be restarted at a separate site using vSphere HA in a Metro Cluster (that was the configuration in the design this table was sampled from).

Manageability is not listed because the NSX controller is considered to be part of the Control plan and NSX Manager is considered to be part of the Management Plane.